IE 9 Platform Preview 6 Available for Download

Microsoft released IE 9 Platform Preview 6, the latest test version of its upcoming Internet Explorer 9, yesterday. The company said it wants developers to take it for a spin and report back to them with additional features needed for the final release.

"Platform Preview 6 is an important milestone on the way to the Release Candidate (RC). The IE9 platform is nearly complete. We appreciate your help delivering a richer and faster Web that takes advantage of the new web standards the IE9 Release Candidate will support. We continue to welcome your feedback via Connect," said Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president of Internet Explorer, in an MSDN blog entry.

According to Microsoft, this is the final phase before a release candidate of the browser is available for testing. Unlike the beta version, which was released on Sept. 15, the IE9 Platform Preview 6 is not a full-functioning Web browser and is designed for compatibility testing.

The latest build took into account feedback from developers and has added support for CSS3's 2D transforms.

During the opening keynote of the two-day Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft execs cited that IE 9's beta had been downloaded over 10 million times. There is still no word when the final release will be available.